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US sends 130 more troops to Iraq

August 13, 2014

CAMP PENDLETON – Another 130 US troops arrived in Iraq on Tuesday on what the Pentagon described as a temporary mission to assess the scope of the humanitarian crisis facing thousands of displaced Iraqi civilians trapped on Sinjar Mountain and evaluate options for getting them out to safety.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the deployment in remarks to Marines at this Southern California base on the final stop of a week-long, around-the-world trip that also took him to India, Germany and Australia. “This is not a combat boots on the ground kind of operation,” Hagel said. “We’re not going back into Iraq in any of the same combat mission dimensions that we once were in in Iraq,” he added, referring to the eight-year war that cost more than 4,400 US lives.